Uber Sword

[Dming For Noobs]

One of my Players has a Jovar (MotP)that is really killing my game. It is a +4 Thundering Flaming Frost Shocking Keen Sure Striking Wounding Kevar Resin Throwing Returning Warning Dragon Bane Jovar :smallannoyed:. It has a massive crit range, a x4 Critical, insane damage, and SOOO many +1d6 of damage. On top of that, it is an intelligent CE weapon with deathwatch and something else i cannot recall at the moment. It drops my BBEG in one hit. How can i stop it? the player refuses compromise, and is in addition mocking our wizard, the buff-mister/Healer. Need Help Please!

[Yukitsu]

For one, that shouldn't even be a remote issue, but despite it being actually relatively unimportant, that thing is also costing like, 20 million gold pieces. How in the heck would someone get that in the first place?

[Glimbur]

Well, if you have talked to the player and they refuse to compromise, you have three options.

1) Kick the player

2) Remove the sword from the equation. Maybe it gets stolen in the night by super-kaorti ninjas, maybe it gets disintegrated, maybe it gets disarmed while they are flying over a volcano, whatever.

3) Alter the game so a +yes sword is not so helpful.

3 is the hardest to do, and I would give serious thought to 1. 2 feels pretty passive-aggressive to me.

[Dungeon_Crawler]

Boost the wizard, then let the wizard kill the jovar guy.

[Dming For Noobs]

For one, that shouldn't even be a remote issue, but despite it being actually relatively unimportant, that thing is also costing like, 20 million gold pieces. How in the heck would someone get that in the first place?

They are 8th Level, and the world is mostly dragons, so he can afford to apply lots of loot into one weapon with a crud ton of +1 enhancments

And as to Glimbur,

1. Cannot kick, as he is sibling

2. Intersesting idea, will try

3. I have been trying that, like my dark human sniper-hunter dude :smallwink:

Dungeon Crawler, BTW, is the aforementioned wizard in the party, and gets really ticked at him.

[Yukitsu]

They are 8th Level, and the world is mostly dragons, so he can afford to apply lots of loot into one weapon with a crud ton of +1 enhancments


I'm a bit confused here, but why is the presence of dragons letting him get a tens of millions of gold pieces sword?

[PrinceOfMadness]

Disjunction.

Seriously though, how DID he come by that? As DM, aren't you controlling what loot gets distributed? If he took it off a big bad, well, don't throw anything against the players you don't want them to use.

Edit: Ah, I see. I would argue, though, that the over-saturation of dragons has actually led to FEWER hoards of gold, as the powerful dragons simply steal it from the weaker ones. With the end result that most of the world's random loot gets concentrated into a few massive hoards (guarded by appropriately epic dragons).

[Darkhope]

lol, really? that's your options?

Ok, we all make mistakes sometimes. No Biggie. There are plenty of ways to turn this to your advantage. There are a dozen plot's you could incorporate into your campaign around the PC and the sword. A sword of that power would be wanted by every NPC in existence over 20th level. The PC does not possess the "power" to wield the sword. If you gave a +5 Vorpal sword to a first level character, that character is gonna get robbed and killed by anyone that can take him out.

Get rid of the sword. Stolen or destroyed does not harm the PC's character so thats your best route. If this guy is disrupting your game and pissing you and other players off, wipe the floor with him and make him roll another character. Next time he's alone he gets jumped by an archmage with three iron golem's and his rouge buddy. Poof, make a new character and the sword is gone for good. Good riddens! Fix your game, and don't let PC's get a hold of power or items that are far beyond their level. There are charts in the DMG for average GP value's of gear a PC should have. Try and keep all the players near the average.

[Zanos]

I think the price of the sword was calculated incorrectly. My guess is that you allowed him to apply each +1 bonus for 2000 gold, rather than the increasing cost of enchantment that would normally be in place.

[Dming For Noobs]

Dragons have Triple Loot

Every Magical enchanment add HP and Hardness, and if he loses his sword, all hell will break lose, and the party will all be killed and reanimated by the cleric :smalleek:

Edit: Zanos, WHAT!!!!:smallfurious:

[Yukitsu]

Dragons have Triple Loot

Every Magical enchanment add HP and Hardness, and if he loses his sword, all hell will break lose, and the party will all be killed and reanimated by the cleric :smalleek:

Edit: Zanos, WHAT!!!!:smallfurious:

Also, a sword with more than a total of +10 enchantments costs X10 as much of its total cost, as it's considered an epic item.

[Dming For Noobs]

This both sucks and rocks. I can ban hammer that sword, and maybe tone him down alot. Where are the pricing guidelines for this, and could i have some explanation, as i obviously missed something the first time around.

[Zanos]

A +1 weapon with a +2 property on it has the value of a +3 weapon, for example.

If a weapon has special abilities totaling more than +5 or a regular enchantment totaling more than +5, it is considered epic, and the price is multiplied by 10.

[Dming For Noobs]

where is this written, as i need to do the math for this guys sword?

[Yukitsu]

"Add to enhancement bonus on Table: Weapons to determine total market price."

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicWeapons.htm

From the weapon enchantment tables. It's included as the first note in each weapon category table.

[Bronk]

Also, the epic magic item table

http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/resources/systems/pennpaper/dnd35/soveliorsage/epicMagicItems.html

[Dming For Noobs]

thanks to all who have posted, i will take this up with the player when i see him next. Also, congratulate yourselves, you have officially saved my game/bacon :smallbiggrin:

[herrhauptmann]

One of my Players has a Jovar (MotP)that is really killing my game. It is a +4 Thundering Flaming Frost Shocking Keen Sure Striking Wounding Kevar Resin Throwing Returning Warning Dragon Bane Jovar :smallannoyed:. It has a massive crit range, a x4 Critical, insane damage, and SOOO many +1d6 of damage. On top of that, it is an intelligent CE weapon with deathwatch and something else i cannot recall at the moment. It drops my BBEG in one hit. How can i stop it? the player refuses compromise, and is in addition mocking our wizard, the buff-mister/Healer. Need Help Please!
+1 abilities: Thunder, Flaming, Frost, Shocking, Keen, Throwing, Bane

+2 abilities: Wounding

Super ninja'd. I take too long writing.

Not even sure of the cost of warning and sure strike, but I'll assume +1 for each; it's already a +15 weapon or higher. Is this an epic game? I'm doubting it, since these are all non-epic enchantments.
This abomination should cost at least 15*15*10*2000gold= 4,500,000 gold That's before including the Intelligent Item powers, which are not cheap.
How did you let him even start play with that thing in a nonepic game? Is he a moron who thinks that he can put multiple +1 abilities on a sword for a mere 2000 gold each?

First off, talk to him. Seems like that's not working.
This guy is disruptive and rude, best bet is to kick him from the game.

If you can't/won't do that, you've got to handle his sword somehow. Chances are, doing these will cause him to quit the game anyway.


You can cancel out the flaming/frost/shock with Resistance Fire 6, Electric 6 and Cold 6.
Gloves of arrow snatching should handle the throwing. Your BBEG then catches the thrown weapon. And uses it against him.
Ignore the bane by not using dragons.
Ignore the keen/kaorti by using creatures immune to crits.

Normally I don't advocate intentionally negating players like this, but he's a problem.

You can also put him against certain oozes. When he uses that sword, it'll corrode to nothing. There's a CR12 trap in dungeonscape taht is an ooze, on its turn, everyone next to it loses all their gear that isn't explicitly immune to acid. It also splits into two if hit with slashing/piercing, and corrodes the weapon immediately.

I bet he charges with the weapon. Give an enemy steadfast boots and a two handed weapon. They'll get a set attack against him for double damage when he charges, but before he hits. If they've got better reach, they'll also get an AOO for movement. Again, before he hits. And all at that -2 AC for charging.
He probably won't survive that set of 2 hits. If he does, put another person in the fight who can charge him, but is out of his cleave ability.

Use people that sunder weapons.

Set up an entire group of encounters full of people hunting for this Artifact Sword. The most powerful sword in the world. Make sure that few or none of them challenge him to a duel. Why would you duel a man with the most powerful sword? You ambush him and kill him, or steal the sword.

[XionUnborn01]

Just to clarify, being +4 with thundering, shocking, frost, flaming, keen, and bane put it at 200,000gp +the base cost of a masterwork jovar.

The other qualities push it into epic, causing it to rise even higher.

page 221 of the DMG, starting at the weapons heading, the paragraph starting with "In addition to an enhancement bonus..." is where you'll want to read.

Quick breakdown:

The weapon is +4
Thundering is +1
Shocking is +1
Frost is +1
Flaming is +1
Keen is +1
Bane is +1

Add them all together and look at table 7-9, page 222.
You'll see that it adds to +10 so it costs 200,000gp. Adding the other abilities pushes it into epic, and will increase it's cost into the millions.

[eggynack]

If a weapon has special abilities totaling more than +5... it is considered epic
Where're ya getting this from? You need a single enhancement to have a cost greater than +5 to get an epic weapon, at least within those particular parameters. a +1 flaming burst, icy burst, holy greatsword would be non-epic, because none of the individual enchantments are +6 or greater.

[faircoin]

Where're ya getting this from? You need a single enhancement to have a cost greater than +5 to get an epic weapon, at least within those particular parameters. a +1 flaming burst, icy burst, holy greatsword would be non-epic, because none of the individual enchantments are +6 or greater.

This is a nuance I've never noticed.


Has a special ability with a market price modifier greater than +5.

Huh, I guess you're right.

EDIT

Are any of the epic special abilities actually worth their enhancement cost?

[XionUnborn01]

Where're ya getting this from? You need a single enhancement to have a cost greater than +5 to get an epic weapon, at least within those particular parameters. a +1 flaming burst, icy burst, holy greatsword would be non-epic, because none of the individual enchantments are +6 or greater.

Huh, that's correct. The epic handbook references table 8-10 in the DMG, but it's the 3.0 book....because there's no table 8-10 in the 3.5 dmg and I don't currently have a 3.0 DMG so i have no idea right now...

[jaybird]

Edit: Zanos, WHAT!!!!:smallfurious:

I nearly spat-take at my computer when I read this.

[Bronk]

Yeah, that was awesome. The funny thing is that the player can have an even crazier, non-epic weapon with almost as many add-ons if he keeps it a +1 weapon and puts a permanencied +5 magic weapon spell on it.

[Zanos]

Where're ya getting this from? You need a single enhancement to have a cost greater than +5 to get an epic weapon, at least within those particular parameters. a +1 flaming burst, icy burst, holy greatsword would be non-epic, because none of the individual enchantments are +6 or greater.
I stand corrected. Natural 1 on decipher script, I suppose.

[eggynack]

Yeah, basically everything involving epic levels is kinda a mess. I think I just knew this one because I've had an arbitrary argument involving that specific rule. Y'know, I think that's how I learn basically everything, especially when it comes to D&D.

[Douglas]

The criteria for triggering the epic price multiplier on a weapon are:
a) enhancement bonus higher than +5
b) any single special ability more expensive than +5
c) total of everything (enhancement and all special abilities) higher than +10

If a weapon satisfies any one of those conditions, it is epic and costs 10 times as much as normal.

There is no limit on the total of special abilities separate from the "everything" limit. A +1 weapon with several abilities, each of them +5 or less, that add up to +9 is not epic.

As for general pricing, there's a reason special abilities have their prices given as "+X" equivalents rather than as gold pieces amounts. Take the enhancement bonus and the bonus cost of each special ability, add them all up, and compute cost as if the weapon had just a plain enhancement bonus equal to that total (except the non-epic limit is option c, not a). A +2 Flaming Wounding weapon of Speed has:
+2 enhancement (+2)
Flaming (+1)
Wounding (+2)
Speed (+3)
Total: 2 + 1 + 2 + 3 = +8
Cost: 8 * 8 * 2000 = 128000 gp (plus the base masterwork and mundane weapon costs)

[Darkhope]

Did we kill the sword yet?

[Invader]

Magic weapon prices are borked anyway. A plain +5 weapon is ridiculously overpriced to begin with.

[Hackbenjamen]

Sunder it with a Adamantine Katana wielding Samurai (OA of course) No More sword
Also Im sure some super powered thief would steal that weapon in a heart beat

[Vaz]

Greater Ironguard spell?

[Larkas]

Not even sure of the cost of warning and sure strike, but I'll assume +1 for each; it's already a +15 weapon or higher. Is this an epic game? I'm doubting it, since these are all non-epic enchantments.
This abomination should cost at least 15*15*10*2000gold= 4,500,000 gold That's before including the Intelligent Item powers, which are not cheap.
How did you let him even start play with that thing in a nonepic game? Is he a moron who thinks that he can put multiple +1 abilities on a sword for a mere 2000 gold each?

First off, talk to him. Seems like that's not working.
This guy is disruptive and rude, best bet is to kick him from the game.

If you can't/won't do that, you've got to handle his sword somehow. Chances are, doing these will cause him to quit the game anyway.


You can cancel out the flaming/frost/shock with Resistance Fire 6, Electric 6 and Cold 6.
Gloves of arrow snatching should handle the throwing. Your BBEG then catches the thrown weapon. And uses it against him.
Ignore the bane by not using dragons.
Ignore the keen/kaorti by using creatures immune to crits.

Normally I don't advocate intentionally negating players like this, but he's a problem.

You can also put him against certain oozes. When he uses that sword, it'll corrode to nothing. There's a CR12 trap in dungeonscape taht is an ooze, on its turn, everyone next to it loses all their gear that isn't explicitly immune to acid. It also splits into two if hit with slashing/piercing, and corrodes the weapon immediately.

I bet he charges with the weapon. Give an enemy steadfast boots and a two handed weapon. They'll get a set attack against him for double damage when he charges, but before he hits. If they've got better reach, they'll also get an AOO for movement. Again, before he hits. And all at that -2 AC for charging.
He probably won't survive that set of 2 hits. If he does, put another person in the fight who can charge him, but is out of his cleave ability.

Use people that sunder weapons.

Set up an entire group of encounters full of people hunting for this Artifact Sword. The most powerful sword in the world. Make sure that few or none of them challenge him to a duel. Why would you duel a man with the most powerful sword? You ambush him and kill him, or steal the sword.

Considering the intelligence of the item, it costs an extra 2,700gp (continuous Deathwatch) + 2,000 or 4,000gp for the two lesser powers (depending on whether it can speak or not) + 1,000 to 6,500gp for the other lesser power. This adds at least 5,700gp and at most 13,200gp to the total price.

A regular jovar costs 500gp. Kaorti Resin (I suppose Kaorti was misspelled) doesn't have a set price, as it's supposed to be extremely hard to come by, what with it having to be handmade (literally) by creatures from the Far Realm. If we follow the pricing of the kaorti dagger (25 times what a regular dagger costs), the base price for a kaorti jovar should be 12,500gp. Making it masterwork increases that to 12,800gp. How you could find a celestial blade named after the sixth layer of Celestia crafted by a Far Realm entity is beyond me.

So yeah, we're looking at a weapon costing between 4,518,200 gp and 4,525,700. An 8th level character shouldn't be able to afford even an unenchanted, non-masterwork kaorti jovar (1/4 the 8th level recommended wealth is 6,750gp), let alone that monster of a weapon.

... If the player is disrupting gameplay that much, I'd open a rift to the Far Realm, sucking him in as punishment for stealing the most powerful weapon from that reality. Or just because some impossible-to-understand entity wants its teaspoon back. But that's just me. :smallbiggrin:

[Crake]

There is no limit on the total of special abilities separate from the "everything" limit. A +1 weapon with several abilities, each of them +5 or less, that add up to +9 is not epic.

Despite that being how it works, you still need a caster level of 3x total special ability price modifier to craft such a weapon, so despite it being considered a non-epic item, it still requires CL27 and (barring CL increase shenanigans) epic levels to create.

[Winds of Nagual]

Can I suggest starting a new campaign?

[IronFist]

I really want to know how he got that weapon in the first place.

[GreenSerpent]

I really want to know how he got that weapon in the first place.

I bet a wizard did it.

[tyckspoon]

Despite that being how it works, you still need a caster level of 3x total special ability price modifier to craft such a weapon, so despite it being considered a non-epic item, it still requires CL27 and (barring CL increase shenanigans) epic levels to create.

Incorrect. The base enhancement bonus CL requirement and the special ability CL requirements are distinct and separate requirements; you use the higher one, not stack them together to determine an overall requirement. 'Effective' enhancement bonuses only matter for the item's cost. Anything else that refers to an item's enhancement bonus just means its standard, +1-5 quality.

[Douglas]

Despite that being how it works, you still need a caster level of 3x total special ability price modifier to craft such a weapon, so despite it being considered a non-epic item, it still requires CL27 and (barring CL increase shenanigans) epic levels to create.
Enhancement bonus on its own has a requirement of 3x bonus for caster level. This is completely separate and distinct from the caster level requirements of special abilities. For special abilities, each one has its own specific caster level requirement, and that's the end of it.

[eggynack]

Why don'tya just toss a freezing fog at him? That's a special kind of hell for characters that can't deal with it. He can't ultra-sword your BBEG if he's stuck in a freezing fog for the remainder of his natural life. Also, you should layer extra BFC's onto the freezing fog for humor value. I don't know if fog based solutions are the best ones, but any solution involving a freezing fog is one I can get behind.

[Crake]

Enhancement bonus on its own has a requirement of 3x bonus for caster level. This is completely separate and distinct from the caster level requirements of special abilities. For special abilities, each one has its own specific caster level requirement, and that's the end of it.

Oh damn, I always read it to mean that if it had both enhancement bonuses and special abilities, you use the look at them sepa- whatever, looking at it under this context, I see I was actually wrong. Thanks for pointing that out to me

[herrhauptmann]

I really want to know how he got that weapon in the first place.

I think the game started at a higher level and he went and dropped all his cash onto the sword. He's probably wearing non-MW armor, eating iron rations so he could afford it. A lot of inexperienced players don't know that putting all your gold into one item is a terrible idea.

I'm willing to bet that he looked at this table: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicWeapons.htm and said to himself "+1 enchantments only cost 2000 each. So I can make a +1 sword with 9 different +1 enchantments like Flaming for only 20,000!"

Might have done it not knowing. Or might have done it realizing that the DM didn't know better. Given how much of a jerk he's been to the others at the table, (and as sibling to the DM, and therefore unkickable) I'd bet the latter. Heck, we should probably be glad he hasn't started murdering other PCs.

[mabriss lethe]

This is an intelligent weapon, you say?

That means it has an Ego Score, and given all of its bells and whistles, that score is pretty darned high. Should the PC's actions ever come into direct conflict with the weapon's agenda, he's got to make a will save vs that ridiculously high ego score. After he inevitably fails it, you can do all sorts of fun things to take the sword out of play. Have it attack him. Refuse to attack a target. Force him to surrender to a foe. http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/intelligentItems.htm#itemEgo